Tag Archives: ferrisbuellersdayoff

Movie taglines: you know the drill (actually the tagline for a dental-themed slasher pic whose name escapes me…). One, two or three sentences that sum up a film’s flavour or sometimes entire plot. To cineastes of a certain generation, a tagline can be as memorable as the movie itself. Some even become part of the modern lexicon.

But what makes a good tag? Perhaps it’s common words uncommonly used. Horror and sci-fi films seem to lend themselves to memorable tags. Is it because of their promise of the perverse, the uncanny, the unexpected, the taboo?

Quotable taglines are scarce these days. Perhaps the proliferation of films as ‘lists’ on Netflix, YouTube and Lovefilm has snuffed them out. Walk into your local multiplex and you’ll see some extremely lame offerings. But the 1980s threw up a fair few humdingers, prompted by a need for eye-catching posters and proliferation of horror movies. Here are some of the best:

11. ‘The Shining’ (1980): The tide of terror that swept America is HERE.